BLUF:
* To determine whether AI is ‘improving exponentially’, ‘hitting the wall’, or any other claim which involves a quantity or magnitude (e.g. ‘This model was a big leap/small increment’). We need a good y-axis: an interval scale of AI capability which means +1 unit always represents the same degree of ‘how much better’, in the same way +1 degree Celsius is always the same amount of ‘how much hotter’.
* Yet there is no good y-axis for AI capability. All our...
Public service announcement
1. Applications are now open for our first ever round of the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program dedicated exclusively to animal welfare. Learn more about what’s different this round here and apply...
Summary
* The animal welfare movement has already seen an influx in funding and should prepare for the possibility of more.
* The EA Animal Welfare Fund is encouraging those working in animal advocacy to actively set aside time and resources now to concretely plan for scaling sustainably, and we’ll support you in doing that.
* We’re requesting advocates set concrete ambitious goals and submit plans t...
Today is India's 76th Independence Day! I thought it would be nice to look at some of India's progress over the last three-fourths of a century:
Infant mortality has gone down by 13.48% since 1960.
The death rate from malaria has gone down from 15.78 deaths per 100,000 people in 1990 to 2.61 deaths per 100,000 in 2019.
The number of children whose development has been stunted (as a consequence of poor nutrition or repeated infections) has gone down from 66.04 million in 1990 to 49.26 million, a ~25% reduction.
The share of Indians living in extreme poverty has drastically reduced from 58.96% in 1981 to 10.55% in 2017.
We still have a long, long way to go in many domains (as one EA-aligned example, lead in paint and lead concentration in children is still a huge issue in India).
Source: Our World in Data